Was Adam a Slave?

[Hygro]

And after the sixth plague Washington crossed the Delaware...

tim, you're gonna have to explain that one if you want us to understand you

 

[timtofly]

Some people accept both as historical figures and their experiences were well documented. I assume that in 3000 years, the formation of the US will be just as ambiguous.

 

[onejayhawk]

By asserting your faith in this argument as part of your argument, your faith limits your ability to understand what I'm saying.

Again, you are assuming your conclusion. What I believe is not relevent. Your belief that it does indicates your misunderstanding of the issue, which is very simple. IF the God described in the Hebrew scriptures is real, the that God's laws are objective.

This called a hypothetical statement. What is required, what you are refusing to do, is stipulate the hypothesis. You cannot successfully argue that the God does not exist, because that is given. You need to argue that the conclusion does not follow from the premise. This neither you nor el machinae have attempted.

J

 

[onejayhawk]

Ehn, whatever. You're incorrect, but it doesn't matter. They're not examples of the Pain Paradox, which mostly requires an intuition that there's an objective good. I do reject the premise anyway. I don't believe in the existence of Abraham or Moses, so their god needn't exist either.

Thank you. Refusing to stipulate the hypothesis is a valid response. The others were not.

J

 

[Hygro]

I understand the hypothetical fine, and have already played through it. In the hypothetical, there's no magic exception to the English language that God's will is not God's subjective will. It is, in fact, a tautology.

Why you add your own rules of what objective does or does not mean is something I am having trouble with. It seems however that you are not arguing the hypothetical, but arguing what you deem the empirical and asking us to take it hypothetically because we don't accept your claims as empirical.

Perhaps not?

The hypothetical debate we're having whether the Abrahamic/Torah God's creation is objective or subjective. I argue it's subjectively because that's what the words mean. You argue it's objective because God is a teaching God, which makes zero sense to me in the context of what defines subjectivity vs objectivity. God can teach God's subjective universe just fine. You also argue that it's objective because by definition if it's God creating that, it has to be not-subjective. That's a leap in logic. Just because it's objectively real does not mean it's not a subjective creation.

I am, of course, repeating myself. I don't know how to make this any clearer.

edit: I'm realizing you have in your logic "if objective then not subjective". Aside from that these are not contradictory, you're still applying reverse signal flow. Here's one correct order:

God
God's subjective universe (God decided light so there was light et al)
Which is the objective universe (light objectively exists)
Our objective existence (a physical real existence)
Our subjective understanding of our objective existence.

 

[El_Machinae]

Thank you. Refusing to stipulate the hypothesis is a valid response. The others were not.

You know you're just playing a variant of Anselm, right?

 

[Hygro]

Some people accept both as historical figures and their experiences were well documented. I assume that in 3000 years, the formation of the US will be just as ambiguous.

There is quite a big disparity in the amount of evidence between the two but it's possible that we'll scale our demands for accurate history so great it will be proportionately analogous.

 

[onejayhawk]

I understand the hypothetical fine, and have already played through it. In the hypothetical, there's no magic exception to the English language that God's will is not God's subjective will. It is, in fact, a tautology.

Why you add your own rules of what objective does or does not mean is something I am having trouble with. It seems however that you are not arguing the hypothetical, but arguing what you deem the empirical and asking us to take it hypothetically because we don't accept your claims as empirical.

Perhaps not?

The hypothetical debate we're having whether the Abrahamic/Torah God's creation is objective or subjective. I argue it's subjectively because that's what the words mean. You argue it's objective because God is a teaching God, which makes zero sense to me in the context of what defines subjectivity vs objectivity. God can teach God's subjective universe just fine. You also argue that it's objective because by definition if it's God creating that, it has to be not-subjective. That's a leap in logic. Just because it's objectively real does not mean it's not a subjective creation.

I am, of course, repeating myself. I don't know how to make this any clearer.

edit: I'm realizing you have in your logic "if objective then not subjective". Aside from that these are not contradictory, you're still applying reverse signal flow. Here's one correct order:

God
God's subjective universe (God decided light so there was light et al)
Which is the objective universe (light objectively exists)
Our objective existence (a physical real existence)
Our subjective understanding of our objective existence.

Your understanding of tautology is bizarre. Maybe it is your grasp of the English language. Will is never subjective--yours, mine, my dog Jack's. Will is a fact. Understanding can be subjective. Will is not.

I grant that you keep repeating yourself.

J

 

[onejayhawk]

You know you're just playing a variant of Anselm, right?

Expand.

J

 

[Hygro]

Your understanding of tautology is bizarre. Maybe it is your grasp of the English language. Will is never subjective--yours, mine, my dog Jack's. Will is a fact. Understanding can be subjective. Will is not.

I grant that you keep repeating yourself.

J

God decides that X is better than Y and wills it so. That makes what God wills a progeny of his subjective will. Subjective will means will that enacts that which is God's subjective desires/thoughts/drive-to-action.

The tautology is that if God wills something into existence because that's what God desires to exist ergo the existence is from God's desires, which are subjective by definition. That's a pretty straightforward tautology.

There is also a physical reality from where and what that will comes from, and the objective reality that will creates. That does not deny that the expression of something's will is not informed by its subjective experience.

 

[onejayhawk]

God decides that X is better than Y and wills it so. That makes what God wills a progeny of his subjective will. Subjective will means will that enacts that which is God's subjective desires/thoughts/drive-to-action.

The tautology is that if God wills something into existence because that's what God desires to exist ergo the existence is from God's desires, which are subjective by definition. That's a pretty straightforward tautology.

There is also a physical reality from where and what that will comes from, and the objective reality that will creates. That does not deny that the expression of something's will is not informed by its subjective experience.

You keep saying things like desires are subjective, which is wrong. I begin to think you do not understand what subjective means.

J

 

[Hygro]

You keep saying things like desires are subjective, which is wrong. I begin to think you do not understand what subjective means.

J

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective

Desires objectively exist, but that doesn't preclude them from being of the subjective.

 

[onejayhawk]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective

Desires objectively exist, but that doesn't preclude them from being of the subjective.

Yes it does. Judgements are subjective. Facts are not.

J

 

[Hygro]

And ye who accuses me of not understanding the English language.

I've made my case for the literate, I'll let them judge.

 

[classical_hero]

Actually you can makes facts out to whatever you want them to show, you just have to be creative.

 

[Borachio]

Actually, I don't think there's anything which is objective (for which read "fact"). I'm surprised the word is ever used.

I can't think of anything that can be said to exist outside our subjective knowledge of it.

 

[El_Machinae]

Expand.

"My God is sooo powerful, that any morality he creates is objective"

"Okay, so the morality is subjective"

"No, it's objective, the god is sooooo powerful"

"That's not what objective means"

"You're not imagining how so, so powerful my God is. The problem here is your imagination"

It's basically Anselm's argument repolished.

Anyway, about your logical statement.


IF the God described in the Hebrew scriptures is real, then that God's laws are objective

I guess that the major issue I had was that the description of the god you seem to be pulling out of 'the Hebrew scriptures' does not jive with the description I am pulling out. So, your logical phrase should actually be.

IF the God I perceived as described in the Hebrew scriptures is real, then that God's laws are objective

Which, I'll grant, is harder to argue against. My beef with your logical statement is your understanding of that god's description. Our disagreement on the definition of 'subjective' and 'objective' are merely secondary.

 

[El_Machinae]

Actually you can makes facts out to whatever you want them to show, you just have to be creative.

Depends on the observer, mostly. Yes, carefully arranged facts can deceive an observer if it takes advantage of cognitive biases and (normally useful) heuristics. This is basically why we sometime flinch at shadows.

 

[onejayhawk]

"My God is sooo powerful, that any morality he creates is objective"

"Okay, so the morality is subjective"

"No, it's objective, the god is sooooo powerful"

"That's not what objective means"

"You're not imagining how so, so powerful my God is. The problem here is your imagination"

It's basically Anselm's argument repolished.

Anyway, about your logical statement.


IF the God described in the Hebrew scriptures is real, then that God's laws are objective

I guess that the major issue I had was that the description of the god you seem to be pulling out of 'the Hebrew scriptures' does not jive with the description I am pulling out. So, your logical phrase should actually be.

IF the God I perceived as described in the Hebrew scriptures is real, then that God's laws are objective

Which, I'll grant, is harder to argue against. My beef with your logical statement is your understanding of that god's description. Our disagreement on the definition of 'subjective' and 'objective' are merely secondary.

I have had arguments bog down in semantics before, but never to this extent. It seems a simple enough hypothetical, and it as merely a starting point for the discussion. I was going somewhere like what classical_hero. God's laws are objective, but how we understand and apply them is not. I could not get past the comma before being assaulted from multiple directions.

You still have not expanded on Anselm. Are you being dismissive of the onotological "proof" of god?

J

 

[Farm Boy]

You get into the real fun when you get into the possibility that subjective understandings, at odds with each other, may be simultaneously objectively correct.